DNA results: 15% Italy/Greece? (native, percentage, pure, surnames)

[Ethereal]

I got my AncestryDNA results and surprisingly saw that I had ancestry in Italy and Greece (at 15%). My main ethnic make-up was the Caucasus at 57% and Middle East at 27%.

Now the question is, how do I know if that 15% was the Italian or Greek part? Or which of the two countries "dominated" that percentage figure?

[AFP]

Originally Posted by Ethereal

I got my AncestryDNA results and surprisingly saw that I had ancestry in Italy and Greece (at 15%). My main ethnic make-up was the Caucasus at 57% and Middle East at 27%.

Now the question is, how do I know if that 15% was the Italian or Greek part? Or which of the two countries "dominated" that percentage figure?

What is your ancestry?

[censusdata]

If you don't have known Italian ancestry that likely means your ancestors were part of the govt of the Roman Empire, maybe beyond that in Ancient Greece. High ranking Romans often retired in the frontier areas, places like Spain or Southern France. I'm curious what ethnicity you are. I've seen that many Latino Americans have a lot of Italy / Greece ancestry.


By the same token I'm expecting to have some Scandinavian ancestry despite having no ancestors migrant directly from Norway, etc. It's because the Vikings raped, pillaged, and settled all across Europe. A lot of my English surnames are of Norman / Viking heritage.

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by Ethereal

I got my AncestryDNA results and surprisingly saw that I had ancestry in Italy and Greece (at 15%). My main ethnic make-up was the Caucasus at 57% and Middle East at 27%.

Now the question is, how do I know if that 15% was the Italian or Greek part? Or which of the two countries "dominated" that percentage figure?

The trouble is, the region named Italy/Greece isn't even exclusive to just Italy/Greece, let alone that one of those might be dominate. Take a look at the information on the region when you expand it. Note how many other countries are listed for the "also found in", how many are covered by the map, and what is listed under "Other regions commonly seen in people native to the Italy/Greece region". Note that Caucasus and Middle East are the number one and two regions commonly seen in people native to Italy/Greece. That whole Mediterranean area shares a lot of DNA that can be hard to separate. It doesn't necessarily mean you have any Italian or Greek ancestry, all it really means is that an average of 15% of your DNA was found to be most similar to Ancestry.com's sample groups from the region labelled Italy/Greece.

Because you should also note that when you expand the details, they actually give you a percentage range. The range represents the highest and lowest results you had for that region during their 40 different analyses - in the end, they average it out for the final number. This illustrates how much the ethnicity reports are just an estimate and it's best not to take them too literally. It's possible that some of your DNA from, for example, a Middle Eastern ancestor, is showing up under Italy/Greece, purely because people from those two regions are genetically similar and difficult, if not impossible to tell apart sometimes.

My results are similar, but in reverse. I have known Italian ancestry and in my ethnicity report, I have trace amounts in the Middle East and Caucasus. It doesn't really mean anything, it's just coming from my Italian ancestry.

[Dynamogene]

You are probably Syrian, as many Syrians are originally Syrian (mix of Italian Greek and Turkish) and mixed with people coming from Muslim areas of Russia ie Chechens etc.

Syrians are quite mixed ethnically.

I would say you are from Aleppo or Idlib specifically.

[westsideboy]

Interesting old post. I would love to know the answer.

I was reading a few days ago on Wikipedia that some scholars think the Philistines of David vs. Goliath fame may have been related to the Minoans. There are similarities in the written language, names, and possibly battle tactics (the calling out of champions from both armies to fight in single combat is a known Greek custom.)

So, I would be very interested to know if Syrians, or Lebanese come back with Southern European groups on DNA tests.

[subban]

It has been proven recently the Philistines were a branch of the Phoenicians. Phoenicians were sea farers and traveled all over the Mediterranean. They settled colonies in North Africa as the Carthage empire and islands like Carthage and Corsica. Its probably also a good reason why middle eastern DNA was spread throughout the Mediterranean and why a lot of these peoples in the region are related.

[marino760]

It depends where in Italy your family is from and the company you use. If Southern Italian, most DNA results will not distinguish between Italy and Greece. If you are northern Italian, your DNA results will probably be different. My ancestors are from Italy in the Romagna region next to Tuscany, and my results came back Tuscan/Italian or simply Italian. I had nothing from north Africa and a very small amount Greece/Balkan.

[PA2UK]

It should be noted that since the original post in 2016, AncestryDNA have updated their ethnicity results to now attempt to split Italy and Greece. However, that doesn't mean the results are always necessarily accurate, and they should not be taken literally.

The category for Italy is now defined as:
Italy
Primarily located in: Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Malta
Also found in: Turkey, Switzerland, Greece

And Greece:
Greece & the Balkans
Primarily located in: Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo
Also found in: Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey

If you look at the maps, you'll see there is still some overlap between the two regions too - Greece's map covers a large portion of southern Italy, and the map for Italy covers most of Greece.

[KenFresno]

Originally Posted by Dynamogene

You are probably Syrian, as many Syrians are originally Syrian (mix of Italian Greek and Turkish) and mixed with people coming from Muslim areas of Russia ie Chechens etc.

Syrians are quite mixed ethnically.

I would say you are from Aleppo or Idlib specifically.

This simply is not true.